Motoring News

Today, 28 March 2014

Volkswagen Group readies revolutionary new petrol engine tech
New technology including coasting and variable compression ratios to lead a surge in petrol engine efficiency for the VW Group
The Volkswagen Group is preparing a revolution in petrol engine efficiency, according ?to hints from Audi technical chief Ulrich Hackenberg.Speaking at Audi’s recent annual conference, he said engines with “electro-mechanical assistance for forced induction” and “variable compression ratios” were in development. Hackenberg also said coasting would become an important fuel-saving technology over the next few years. A coasting function - where the transmission disengages from the engine on the overrun - is already built into some VW Group models equipped with dual-clutch automatic gearboxes. Hackenberg gave no details on how Audi will introduce variable compression ratio technology, but the principle has long been something of a Holy Grail for engine designers. Being able to vary an engine’s compression ratio depending on the immediate demands being placed on it should lead to significant advances in efficiency. In 2000, Saab demonstrated its experimental supercharged and turbocharged SVC engine, which used a tilting block to change the volume of the combustion chamber and, therefore, the compression ratio. More r

Testing is over, now it's time for the real BTCC season to begin
The start of the BTCC 2014 is just a day away for fans, but for us drivers it's the end of a long season of testing
As the first race meeting of the new 2014 Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship season gets under way this weekend, you’ll no doubt be excited to see who walks away with the first championship points. For you it’ll be the start of a new motorsport calendar, but for us it’ll be the culmination of months of testing and development. The winter has passed even faster this year as we’ve fought to get the car ready on time. There’s always a feeling of it being good to get going again, to leave behind the world of lap times and development and focus on what really matters: racing.The truth is, each year testing gets harder because each season the car keeps improving. When we first started with the Honda Civic we could make big improvements quickly, but now with the car at the level that it is, finding even a tenth of a second can prove difficult. Someone asked me the other day how I’d react if a technician said he wanted to gain an extra second from the car. My reply? He’d be dreaming.But that’s not to say we stand still for months on end waiting for the new s

How to build a British Touring Car Championship racer
The British Touring Car Championship pits mass-market cars against each other, but just how different are the racers from their road-going counterparts?
The premise of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship is that it contains cars that trackside fans can relate to. A quick glance at the car park at Brands Hatch’s opening rounds this Sunday will demonstrate the fact - the cars on the grid are the cars that people use in everyday life.But the race machines themselves are the product of thousands of man-hours and detailed reworking which is more usually associated with the very highest levels of the sport.Airwaves Racing is a multiple race-winning team in the BTCC, and it is likely to be a leading player in this season’s competition because it has recruited double champion, Italian Fabrizio Giovanardi, to handle its Ford Focus ST.The outfit is based just a few miles from the gates of Brands Hatch in Kent, and its HQ is where the race machine takes shape.Team manager Oly Collins explains: “Some teams might just buy a bodyshell but we prefer to buy a complete road car and go from there, because there are several parts that we can carry over. Things like the door rubbers, some of the wiring loo